I needed to follow her.
“Thanks for the advice,” I said, scooting away from my aunt, ignoring her calling out that she had more to say.
I caught up with Joyce as she rounded the back of the Function Hall, her pace brisk but not quite hurried enough to seem suspicious to a casual observer. To my trained eye, however, the tension in her shoulders and the way she kept glancing around told me everything I needed to know.
I stayed back, using the skills I’d perfected through years of tracking within the orc kingdom. Our ancestors had been hunters long before we became builders and traders. I kept to the shadows, my footsteps matching the rhythm of the breeze through the grass so they’d be indistinguishable.
Joyce stopped near the edge of town where the maintained grounds gave way to wild prairie grass. She pulled out her phone, looked around once more, then dialed.
I positioned myself behind the maintenance shed, close enough to hear but not be seen. From this angle, I could observe her without risking detection. Her posturechanged as soon as the call connected, her spine straightening, her voice dropping to a more professional register than I’d ever heard her use in the saloon.
“It’s me,” she said. “Yes, everything’s proceeding as planned.” She listened for a moment, turning away from town to face the mountains. “Tomorrow night is our best window. But we need to act now.”
She ended the call and strode toward the center of town.
Chapter 19
Riley
The sizzle of meat hitting hot metal filled the evening air as Dungar carefully arranged the steaks on the gleaming new grill. His movements were precise, each piece of meat placed at exactly the same distance from the others, creating a perfect grid pattern across the cooking surface. The grill itself was a high-end stainless-steel model with temperature zones and a built-in thermometer. The assembly instructions folded in perfect thirds sat on the side table.
“When did you get this?” I asked, leaning against the deck railing with a glass of iced tea in my hand. The sunset painted the mountains in shades of pink and gold, and I couldn’t stop staring.
Dungar didn’t look up as he turned each steak. “It arrived this morning.”
Yesterday, I’d mentioned over breakfast how much I missed grilled food, the smoky flavor that reminded me of summers with my parents before everything fell apart.I hadn’t expected him to do anything with that information. It was just conversation, the kind of casual sharing that happened between people living in the same house.
Yet here he was, grilling steaks on equipment he’d clearly never used before, consulting a laminated recipe card he’d created with temperature charts and cooking times for different levels of doneness.
“You bought this because I said I liked grilled food?” I tried to keep my voice casual, though heat unfurled in my chest.
His eyes flicked to mine, then back to the steaks. “You seemed wistful when you talked about it.” He adjusted the flame. “I thought you might enjoy having it again.”
“Thank you.” The words felt insufficient, but they were all I had.
He glanced up, his dark eyes holding mine. “You’re welcome.”
I watched him work, admiring the careful attention he gave to each detail. The way he checked the temperature gauge every thirty seconds, the precise timing of each flip, the meticulous application of seasoning. All of it spoke to the care he brought to everything he did.
“I never took you for a grill master,” I said, moving closer to peek at the steaks. “Where did you learn this?”
“MeTube.” A smile teased at the corners of his mouth. “Seventeen instructional videos and four articles on optimal grilling techniques.”
I laughed, the sound carrying across the open field beyond his house. “Let me guess. You took notes?”
“Naturally.” His deadpan delivery broke when Isnorted, his own deep chuckle joining mine. “Is this excessive?”
“It’s perfectly you.” I bumped my shoulder against his arm. “And that’s exactly right.”
His eyes softened in a way that made my heart flutter. For a moment, we stood side by side, the sizzle of cooking meat and the distant call of birds the only sounds between us. The silence felt comfortable, like we’d been sharing evenings this way for years instead of days.
I found myself wishing we had been.
The thought was dangerous, like all the others I’d been having lately. Thoughts about permanence. About belonging. About what it might be like to wake up beside Dungar every morning, not just during this temporary arrangement, but always.
We hadn’t asked if the plumbing in my hotel room had been fixed. I suspected neither of us wanted to know.
Since our encounter in the hallway, we hadn’t shared more than kisses. I’d fallen asleep in his arms each night, and woken the same way, but nothing more had happened. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that.
